In the field of heating and air conditioning, there are known problems causing discomfort to the occupants, inefficiencies resulting in excessive cost to the building operator, and inconveniences in the operation and control of present systems.
For example, central building control of temperature, air flow, humidity, and the like, or even individual room controls, usually leaves many persons in the building or within the room uncomfortable or dissatisfied with the condition of their particular work environment. Different people have differing personal comfort needs. Also, different locations in a building, or even in a single room, are not satisfactorily cooled or heated, giving rise to complaints about discomfort and illness, resulting in potential absenteeism, sickness and loss of productivity.
Further, conventional air conditioning systems generally require expensive duct work, usually in floors or ceilings, or both, which cause unnecessary heating and cooling of unused space, particularly space surrounding the duct work and space above the head level of the occupants, for example, the upper four feet of space in a room having a twelve foot ceiling. Such duct work also imposes a substantial energy demand for movement of conditioned air through the ducts and presents difficulties in cleaning.
Prior systems with fixed floor or wall mounted air outlet grilles limited the location of furniture and equipment in a manner which would not block air flow. Such prior systems also created areas of complaint or discomfort caused by high or low air velocity and/or extreme high or low temperature depending upon the proximity of the air outlet grilles. Air outlet grilles frequently needed to be moved to accommodate changes in air conditioning load or rearrangement of the workspace.
In today's world of large office buildings, it has become a design objective to provide individual work spaces in generally open rooms. That is, instead of providing each occupant with his or her own permanent, generally enclosed office, a number of work stations or cubicles are provided, each having partitions or room dividers which partially enclose the space to create a separate work space but which do not extend to the ceiling of the room. Often, these work stations include two, three or more partitions for providing the worker with a feeling of privacy.
While such work stations may be economically beneficial in regard to the amount of floor space used, they create an impediment to the flow of conditioned air through the room. That is, conditioned air flows freely in the area above and around the work stations, but within the work stations or between the room dividers there is no means for providing the work station occupants with an acceptable flow of conditioned air. Therefore, the workers often become uncomfortable, or even ill, which, in turn, decreases productivity and/or causes absenteeism.
Consequently, in the field of heating and air conditioning, there exists a need for providing a flow of conditioned air directly to or near a person seated at a work station or near a room divider, as well as to occupants of the surrounding area. More particularly, there exists a need for a work station wherein the occupant can individually obtain and control the amount of conditioned air supplied within the work station for maximizing the comfort, well-being, health and productivity of each worker, while maintaining a desirable flow of conditioned air to the surrounding area.
Conventional room dividers for work stations are not readily adaptable to receive air from underneath the floor, since they generally include a utility duct positioned along the floor for carrying, for example, electrical and communication cables related to equipment positioned proximate the room divider. Hence, a need exists for supplying conditioned air to the work station from underneath the floor without having to substantially redesign existing work station room dividers or to remove the utility duct.
To remedy the problems inherent in existing work stations, the present invention provides means for circumventing the utility duct to allow existing work stations to be retrofitted or new work stations to be manufactured with the capability of receiving a controlled flow of conditioned air from underneath the floor. The room divider of the present invention allows an occupant proximate the room divider to individually control the conditioned air flowing into his or her immediate environment without significantly decreasing the flow of conditioned air to the surrounding area. Therefore, the room divider of the present invention results in considerable savings in the form of increased worker comfort and productivity, improved worker health and decreased utility costs.